


Consumed

by loveiscosmicsin



Series: Hymn of Stars and Blood (Secret Santa Gifts & IgNoct Drabbles) [8]
Category: FF15, FFXV - Fandom, Final Fantasy 15, Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Ignis, Hinted tragic backstory, IgNoct, M/M, Male-Female Friendship, Not an Ignea fic, Platonic Female/Male Relationships, The world may be going downhill and heading towards an apocalypse but that's how friendships work, World of Ruin, implied past drug abuse, post-Episode Ignis (Alternate Ending)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 00:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13201401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loveiscosmicsin/pseuds/loveiscosmicsin
Summary: He loved Ebony and she loved energy drinks, Ignis and Aranea couldn't be any more different and yet, when the world is threatened by darkness and ten years are upon them for the return of the King of Light, their friendship grew in the most unexpected ways.





	Consumed

Ignis' head pounded repeatedly. The source of the pain was unknown, but it tenaciously lingered, easily triggered by even the most insignificant of sounds or the slight unintentional movement. There was no other pain like it and he had known greater suffering. A splash of colors exploded ominously in his head. He had to lie down and not even his mind registered the soft mattress under him the moment he collapsed on the bed.  
  
"Specs?"  
  
"Noct?" Ignis shot upward, only to immediately lie back down, clutching his head. He groaned. Now, his muscles ached unbearably. Closing his eyes couldn’t expel the pain as it had in the past.  
  
"Hey, hey, don't get up on my account." The king’s laughter was forced, almost on the verge of mirrored agony. Quietly, so quiet that it forced Ignis to strain to listen, he asked, "You okay? You took off your glasses."  
  
Ignis turned his wrists over his eyes, a futile effort to hide the scars, fragments of an tumultuous ordeal. He wished to lay his eyes on Noctis, but not when he’s like this. "I'll be fine. Just a slight headache."  
  
"You've been getting those lately. The stress of whole recruiting and strategizing thing finally getting to you?"  
  
"I just need some rest. I won't let this stop me."  
  
The mattress squeaked as the king took a seat beside the advisor's form.  
  
"Put your head on my lap."  
  
The advisor obeyed as a moth drawn to a flame, content with staying like this for a while when his cheek touched Noctis’ thigh. "Do warn me if you have to get up."  
  
"I'm not going anywhere." Soft lips pressed lightly on Ignis' forehead. "Move your hand."  
  
Calloused fingers rubbed small circles in the advisor's temple. Ignis moaned.  
  
"Am I doing it right?" The king's voice was husky, breathy to avoid inflicting the older man with more pain.  
  
"Yes..." Ignis swallowed, tilting his head to meet with Noctis' hands. "This is perfect."  
  
“It won’t be like this for long.”  
  
“It won’t... be?” Ignis echoed, brow furrowing. “What’s that?”  
  
“This,” Noctis answered, vaguely as he delicately traced the faint scarring of Ignis’ face. “What you’re doing now. There’s no question that everyone’s behind you a hundred percent and I’m gonna be the one to meet you half way for what you’ve done. Wait for me a little longer.”  
  
“Noct...”  
  
The name tasted bittersweet the moment it left Ignis’ lips upon waking up. Noctis was gone and he was never present to begin with no matter how much Ignis wished it wasn’t the case. The king’s fingers had ghosted over the advisor’s face and kindled the flame in his heart as if they were physically together just a moment ago. The visage of his beloved followed him in dreams as they had in his wake, vivid and unrelenting.  
  
But Ignis knew the truth. Noctis had departed for where he couldn’t bring those he loved with him, no matter how deeply they cared for him in return. Even for one such as Ignis, who had been branded with the Old King’s’ favor. It was a path that Ignis couldn’t follow. And it was why he had to let him go.  
  
The King of Light left no instructions nor parting words, but that didn’t mean that Ignis was left without purpose. Far from it, he prepared for the imminent threat lurking in the shadows because of the knowledge imparted to him.  
  
Ignis held a love, pure and unyielding, for Noctis, somehow it never dulled in absence and through every action and countermeasure resonated of the young king’s high influence. If Noctis was unwilling to follow the prophecy, then Ignis would’ve fled with him, hide him from—  
  
But that wouldn’t have been Noctis if it was. He never one for inaction or to remain silent for long even crushed by duty, one of the earliest lessons taught by the late king. Since the fall of Insomnia, the events thrown in their paths including Ardyn’s trap in the Zegnautus Keep, led him to demand the Crystal’s power of his own volition. By donning on the Ring of the Lucii, Ignis realized that he was the final crucible in this destiny.  
  
Gladiolus and Prompto followed Ignis’ lead without question. He couldn’t explain why they must prepare for the war, not fully.  
  
To call them dreams would diminish their significance, to call them visions would delving in the supernatural when no blood of the Oracle coursed through his veins, to call alternate realities implied that there was a degree of control in steering toward feasible probabilities than the worst outcomes but they were memories. His memories, good and bad, and they existed for a reason. Fragments of multiple branches that while Ignis of this timeline hadn’t endured, but tried and failed. While his own death and Ravus’ were averted, Noctis’ departure was inevitable. Noctis was still the chosen vessel to restore balance to Eos.  
  
The knowledge of these visions allowed Ignis to defy the stars themselves without hesitation so that this time Noctis‘ light won’t go extinguished. How this would end would be up to them to decide.  
  
Ignis still had his eyes, healed due to the king’s quick thinking.   
  
Noctis was to return.  
  
“But when he does, what then?”  
  
Ignis found himself asking this, interrupting his own thoughts. The prophecy still would have to end with Noctis. The memories showed only so much and led to more questions, carrying answers that he must link himself. This route didn’t reveal the king’s death.  
  
The truth could only be revealed after waiting. Ignis had done five months of it so far.  
  
-  
  
“It wouldn’t kill you to take a break, you know,” Aranea scolded with a hint of disappointment and impatience in her voice.  
  
Ignis smiled, nostalgic by the familiarity. In another history, Aranea had told Ignis to “stop navel-gazing” when she found him fishing in Galdin Quay. She wasn’t a fan of the pastime.  
  
“Isn’t that what I’m doing now, Aranea?” Ignis simpered, looking pleased with himself when his companion scowled. “And how well does Cidney take your advice?” He already knew the answer to that.  
  
“I don’t waste my breath on battles I can’t win,” Aranea said, holding the can Ignis placed in front of her with reserved scrutiny. Seeing that it wasn’t a can of Ebony invading her space, she popped the tab open. “So long she doesn’t skip meals and trouble doesn’t go out finding her, that’s one worry off my plate.”  
  
Aranea Highwind was one of the allies Ignis, Gladiolus, and Prompto recruited. Despite the initial meetings on the battlefield and a temporary partnership coerced by Ardyn Izunia, Aranea held no grudge for the encounters as they were tied to their allegiances. Aranea and her men became deserters of the Niflheim Empire long before the attack in Altissia, opting for a more honest line of work in search and rescue. Before the Empire, they were daemon hunters, freelancers of sorts since they didn’t belong to any of the headquarters. When Aranea joined the fight, Biggs and Wedge happily followed her lead wherever it took them.  
  
Though the two had embarked different roads in life, Aranea and Ignis’ paths met again for a reason. Aranea refused payment after hearing what had transpired and what events were to come after the death of the Oracle and the King of Light’s absence, claiming that the Gil received from the hunts were more than plenty to keep them afloat. They recognized danger and were formidable soldiers, Ignis acknowledged how invaluable they were.  
  
The ex-mercenary commodore found herself at home with their merry band of the king’s royal retainers, veterans, Hunters, displaced survivors, mechanics, technicians, chocobo caretakers, magazine editors, famed researchers, journalists-turned-jewel artisans, and aspiring chefs.  
  
Even now, when the two had nothing in common, Aranea wasn’t a fan of coffee and often scoffed whenever Ignis drank it in her presence, Ignis appreciated all that she’s done. At first, the mercenary had a habit of keeping her distance except to her subordinates, professional to a fault though that front banished when she began opening up to others, breaking her own “don’t get familiar” rule.  
  
And she wasn’t the first former imperial Ignis had allied and befriended. The tactician found one such relationship with Ravus. Though with the former prince and high commander, it was more of a quiet and dependable camaraderie whereas Aranea was direct about showing concern for those she deemed worthy of her time.  
  
Aranea never talked about her personal life. No homeland, family, friends, her occupation before the daemons and the Empire, or how she met her lieutenants to share willingly or when requested. Not even Biggs and Wedge disclosed information on their boss. Like her, they focused on the present. It took Ignis weeks to act on a suspicion and have Aranea admit that she was seeing Cidney romantically. (It was very disconcerting to hear that their relationship began when the head mechanic slapped the ex-commodore due to a misunderstanding. But the latter had laughed it off as she touched her cheek, implying that she received something better that day.) But Aranea was transparent about her values and who she is as a person, even about her favorite brand of energy drink.  
  
Still, if people were judged for who they were in the past, then perhaps Ignis and Aranea wouldn’t be standing here right now.  
  
“You sure you wanna go with this?” Aranea asked, wrapping protective cloth over her hands. “Walking and breathing with your eyes shut is one thing, but fighting is another thing entirely.”  
  
“You’ve taught me to do more than that,” Ignis took a strip of cloth and placed it over his eyes, welcoming the darkness. “If I fall, best be it in practice and not when our lives are on the line.”  
  
Ignis was blind once and Noctis restored his vision. That time. The other times he wasn’t as fortunate. Should his vision be disrupted once more, then what would he do then? He hadn’t attained the years of training as he had in past histories.  
  
Aranea possessed an impressive resume of natural skills and abilities separate from the use of Magitek and unsurprisingly, underwent specific training should she lose capability of her senses to complete a mission.  
  
That included sight.  
  
Ignis readied his stance and held up his hands. “I don’t want...”  
  
He just didn’t want to give Noctis or anyone else a a reason to think less of him. The history where Gladiolus and Noctis considered leaving him behind hurt.  
  
Aranea was silent as she conceded with a sigh. “Say no more, I get it. But don’t think that I do means I’m gonna hold back.”  
  
Training with Aranea was brutal even though she was holding back. Ignis found himself on his knees, betrayed by his hearing and intuition led him to second-guess where his opponent was, was humiliating. It taught him to discard what he already learned, have Aranea take the figurative walking cane he clutched to and sweep the rug from under him, and build up a fighting style without the use of his eyes. Strip all that he knew and realize how powerless he was.  
  
His soul and body refused to live with that vulnerability, it craved for power and domination, to defeat Aranea.  
  
Though it had been months since the Zegnautus Keep, the Ring of the Lucii marked him, its screams and whispers crawled from the back of his mind and into his heart. What power he thought he wielded, held him at the throat and it lingered still, threatening to unlock that primitive subconscious at any time, hungered to kill and derive pleasure from it.  
  
The Ring wasn’t in his possession, it was with its true owner and chosen vessel. The absence made Ignis jealous and made him forget.  
  
Ignis was on the ground, clutching at his wrist, the one that bore the ring and all he saw was red and purple clouding his vision as his screams clawed his throat raw.  
  
Aranea was at his side immediately. “Wh-what’s wrong? Are you okay? I barely—” She forcibly pinned Ignis’ wrists down as he thrashed against her. “Hey, snap out of it!”  
  
“F-fire...” Ignis rasped, his chest rose and fell as he struggled to breathe. “My flesh is—”  
  
The mercenary took the front of his shirt, only for the tactician’s hands to weakly fight her off.  
  
“This isn’t the time to be shy!”  
  
Aranea ripped his shirt, sending buttons flying and stupefied, she gawked at the scars etched on his skin. The inflamed, angry lashings had engulfed Ignis’ chest which extended to his arms and seemed to pulsate under the commodore’s cool fingers. Seeing the pity and helplessness written in her features, Ignis tried his hardest to explain that it’s not as bad as it looked.  
  
There was nothing she could do for him.  
  
Ignis didn’t see Aranea until three days later in the middle of the night.  
  
“Hey,” the mercenary knocked on the door frame before entering. Uncharacteristic of her as she normally just entered without announcing. “How’re you feeling?”  
  
“I’m doing better,” Ignis answered honestly. “Would you like a drink?” He turned his back to retrieve a chilled can of energy elixir. Perhaps he owed her an explanation for the other day.  
  
“Actually, I...” Aranea held out a shirt. “Here. Wedge knows his way around a needle. You won’t find a thread out of place.”  
  
“I... Thank you.”  
  
Aranea’s conflicted expression revealed there was another reason she was here. “I won’t ask what happened or why, it’s really none of my business.” She took out a small white bottle. “Went around asking the docs so I wouldn’t be doing this unless I’m absolutely sure about it.”  
  
Ignis took the bottle, unfamiliar with the name on the label. “What’s this?”  
  
“Helps with nerves and muscle spasms,” she explained, crossing her arms. “But it’s one helluva drug. Easy to abuse, harder to break it off if you get addicted. Just like any other drug.”  
  
“You speak from experience.”  
  
“Yeah. From a long time ago.” In other words, not an open invitation to unload that period of her life any time soon.  
  
“Aranea,” he began, intending to return the bottle. “I’m afraid this doesn’t—”

  
The Dragoon shook her head. “C’mon, it’s not like I’m forcing you to take it. But my conscience won’t let this go until I know you have it with you.” She waved a hand as if that’s all that needed to be said. “Take it if it gets too much to handle, okay?”  
  
Ignis swallowed. “Very well.”  
  
Aranea turned on her heel, exiting. “And lay off the coffee. You should be sleeping more.”

Ignis was stunned and shook his head, chuckling. “Says the woman who doesn’t know there’s a time and place for these matters.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just... really wanted to write a self-indulgent fic about platonic Ignis and Aranea, Aranea having a chip on her shoulder and troubled and traumatic past, but those two connecting somehow. Both have a form of addiction, as it took Aranea years to get past it, Ignis will have a long road ahead of him to recover from his.


End file.
